Aphids may be
white, black, pink or pale green. You will find them on the lower side
of leaves. To control, purchase natural predators at a garden store, or
hose aphids off with a lot of water.

Herbicides and pesticides are best applied in the morning of a day with no wind.

Use organic methods for killing weeds.
Dig them up, pour boiling water on them, or spray them with undiluted
white household vinegar (5% acetic acid). Vinegar will kill many weeds
when applied during the first 2 weeks of the weedís life. Destroy the
weeds before they go to seed. If the weeds donít have time to mature,
they canít propagate the species. In addition, the Master Gardner
program teaches that if you can get your whole garden (vegetable or
flower) all weeded one time before the 4th of July, you wonít have many
weeds after that.

Crop rotation helps prevent pests and diseases.

If you canít keep up with weeding or spraying, at least pull off the flowers or seed heads to reduce seed production.

Plant a tree(s) at your home
or in a park. Trees clean the air by absorbing carbon dioxide, prevent
soil erosion, and provide shelter for wildlife.

Volunteer to help with local conservation.
Plant a tree from their annual tree sale, or create a backyard wildlife
sanctuary. Learn how to reduce water and energy consumption. To learn
more, visit the Spokane County Conservation District at http://www.sccd.org/.

Plant a Row for the Hungry Campaign invites gardeners to add a row to their gardens and donate the vegetables from it to local food banks. (see "Gardening" under the Food and Hunger topic)

Start a Seed Lending Library. There are at
least 60 seed lending libraries in 23 states, as of 2013. It is simple,
and free. If you have seeds, you can grow your own healthy food and
feed yourself.

The basic is idea is that you plant
heirloom seeds. Let some of the plants go to seed and harvest those
seeds to plant the following season. Home gardeners can save seeds from
their tomatoes, lettuce, beans, peas and peppers plants. Then, return
some of these saved seeds to the library for others to borrow the next
season, for free.

Inquire about placing a seed lending library in our public libraries. The seeds can be stored inside the drawers of an old-fashioned library card catalog.

Find master gardeners to
teach free classes on organic gardening and seed saving. Of course,
you can also borrow books from the public library on these topics. http://www.richmondgrowsseeds.org/ďSeed Libraries Help Future Crops,Ē Diana Alvear, NBC Nightly News, by Brian Williams, March 22, 2013